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The "sound bite" from Justice Ginsburg's dissent is this:

"The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven’s promotional exams understandably attract this Court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

I don't get it. By denying them promotion, New Haven was saying, in effect, that some black firefighters DID have a vested right to promotion. While New Haven did not promote any of those firefighters, it clearly was looking for a way to do so -- which I have to assume would have met with the approval of the four dissenting justices. It seems to me they would endorse racial discrimination in favor of black applicants over white and Hispanic applicants. The majority, in contrast, reads the CRA has prohibiting racial favoritism unless there's very strong justification.

Thanks, Lex. Good to hear from you.

No, this hardly constitutes grounds to deny her confirmation when four sitting justices of the court endorsed her position in the case, more or less.

I don't understand how some of the justices who ruled the way you wanted acknowledge that the law is complicated in this issue, and yet you say someone disagreeing must have a mental defect. In this post you sounded like a reasonable person until then.

This is a complicated issue. For example, I think it's hardly reasonable to say that white people are more often the victims of discrimination. I was born 13 years after MLK was shot, and I've seen a lot of discrimination against minorities, but I've never faced any because of my skin color. Simply put, there isn't equal status.

Beyond that, it's complicated if what New Haven did was illegal, even if what it were wrong. I think they were correct to end the practice of weighing the written test so much, but doing that after people were told that was the measure was wrong. (As a side note, what person can seriously think that a written test will give you a good measure of who the best firefighter is?). Still, I think the intentions were not so bad. African-Americans in particular and minorities in general do face difficulties based on their skin color, and because of the past institutionalized discrimination. A group that has been systematically denied education and opportunity for centuries does not magically land on a level playing field after a year or two, or even after a generation. It's also true, I think, that even if there is bias against someone for being white, while a bad thing, it's simply not as bad as bias against someone who's black because the weight of history and the slavery and lynchings and all the other things that historically have gone with the discrimination do matter. It's the same reason that a German saying something nasty about Jews is a lot more disturbing than the other way around. History matters. Now Tony, I perfectly understand if you disagree with that, and that's fine. However, to hold that someone who disagrees with you is somehow deranged is, to be frank, extraordinarily childish. I think it's also a bit ridiculous to think, as some have contended, that discrimination against white people is a widespread problem. After all, look at the faces of those in power. Sure, there's a black president now, so that means only 98% of our presidents have been white. There's only one black person in the senate, not that many in the House, and very few black governors. The pattern is the same in business.

As I said, I understand why the ruling was close. I agree with what Ginsburg wrote, and don't that what Dad quoted above leads to the conclusion that she was saying black firefighters had a right to a promotion (I think that was a logical fallacy on his part). The majority opinion wasn't too bad, but Alito's concurrence was. His opinion was based on not only very serious and baseless accusations against the mayor of New Haven, but also a complete breakdown of logic.